U.S. forces gearing up for showdown in Fallujah

EDWARD HARRISAssociated Press

Published Saturday, October 30, 2004

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq -- American forces are gearing up for a major operation in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, where up to 5,000 Islamic militants, Saddam Hussein loyalists and common criminals are hunkered down, U.S. officers said Friday.

U.S. planners believe many of Fallujah's 300,000 residents have already fled the city, which has become the symbol of Iraqi resistance and where militants last spring ambushed and killed four American contractors, mutilated their bodies and hung them from a bridge.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities want to curb the increasingly violent Sunni Muslim insurgency in order to hold nationwide elections by Jan. 31.

American officials stress that the final order to launch a big operation would come from Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has warned Fallujah to hand over followers of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or face attack.

Allawi has issued no such order, but preparations are clearly under way, including the movement of British soldiers into areas close to Baghdad so that American forces can be redeployed for the showdown in Fallujah.

"We're gearing up to do an operation and when we're told to go we'll go," Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said at a camp near Fallujah. "When we do go, we'll whack them."

A U.S. warplane fired at a house in the eastern Askari district of Fallujah around sundown Friday, witnesses said. Firefighter Salam Hameed said five bodies were pulled from under the rubble. Another four people were injured.

Residents also reported hearing explosions Friday night near the industrial zone in the southeast part of the city.

Iraqi public outrage over reports of civilian casualties pressured the Marines into calling off their siege of Fallujah last April -- a move which strengthened the insurgents' hold on the Sunni city 40 miles west of Baghdad and likely contributed to the dramatic deterioration of security in the capital itself.

The April siege came after the killing of the four U.S. contractors.

On Friday, a Sunni cleric in Baghdad, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, warned the Americans and Iraqis against launching a full-scale attack on Fallujah. If they do, he said Sunni clerics in the capital will issue a fatwa, or a binding religious decree, ordering Muslims to launch street protests and a campaign of civil disobedience.

"Everybody knows that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is another lie like the WMD," he told The Associated Press, referring to Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Hardline clerics who rule Fallujah insist al-Zarqawi is not in the city -- a claim disputed by U.S. and Iraqi officials.

U.S. forces plan to use U.S.-trained Iraqi forces -- especially around Fallujah's many mosques -- to avoid allegations that the attack is nothing more than a bid by the Americans to crush a city widely known in Iraq for religious piety.

"The difference this time is it's driven by the" interim Iraqi government, Hejlik said. "They're calling the shots."

As a sign that preparations are under way, the first wave of troops from the Black Watch regiment arrived at the base near Baghdad, the British Defense Ministry said in London. The Americans asked the British to send troops to the area to free up U.S. forces for an assault on Sunni insurgents.

The rest of the 850-strong battle group from the Black Watch regiment were to arrive over the weekend, the ministry said. The base is 20 miles west of Mahmoudiya, a town that has seen frequent insurgent attacks, according to the report.

The United States has offered a $25 million reward for the capture of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist who announced his allegiance to al-Qaida on the Internet this month. Al-Zarqawi's movement is responsible for numerous car bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages, including three Americans.